Despicable Me 4 Wins the Weekend Box Office While Longlegs Sets Record for Neon

The summer box office continues to impress with another animated feature taking the lead. Currently, Inside Out 2 remains the highest-grossing movie of the year so far, and the first to pass $1 billion at the box office, but Despicable Me 4 is also making some waves. Not only did it just win its second weekend in a row, but it also passed a huge milestone for the Minions franchise. As of this weekend, it is officially the highest-grossing animated franchise of all time with over $5 billion earned at the box office. 

Despicable Me 4 stayed in first place at the domestic box office this weekend, adding another $44.7 million to its new domestic total of $211.1 million. Internationally, the movie added another $88 million for a total of $226.7 million, which brings the animated film’s worldwide total to $437.8 million. While Despicable Me 4 may have been the weekend’s big winner, many are also talking about the success of Longlegs, which made $22 million domestically. 

The new Neon horror film from Osgood Perkins starring Maika Monroe and Nicolas Cage managed to earn the biggest opening ever for Neon. It also marks the biggest opening for a Cage movie since National Treasure: Book of Secrets was released in 2007. It is also the only indie horror movie of the ten years to open to $20 million or more (The Hollywood Reporter points out that those numbers exclude one of the Insidious films from Focus Features/Universal).

“Not since The Blair Witch Project launched 25 years ago on the same weekend in July has there been an independent genre film that out-projected, out-performed, and over-indexed so wildly that it seemed to the industry it ‘came out of nowhere,” Neon shared in a statement (via Deadline). 

“As the summer season of ’24 continues to surprise and amaze with as unpredictable a slate as any in popcorn blockbuster season history, Nicolas Cage finds himself in the company of PG-rated family film blockbusters, a PG-13 horror franchise film, and a space race romance all making their mark in one the most eclectic summer season lineups in industry history,” Comscore Senior Media Analyst Paul Dergarabedian added. 

Meanwhile, Inside Out 2 has now reached $1.35 billion at the box office. 

Stay tuned for more box office updates as big titles such as Twisters and Deadpool & Wolverine are still on the way this month.